


Talking in Your Sleep

by Jejunus (JejuneSins)



Series: Learnin' the Blues [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, Male Solo, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 05:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14826504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JejuneSins/pseuds/Jejunus
Summary: Joan and Joshua Graham are much more honest with each other when he listens to her dreaming about him.This takes place during the events of my previous fic, Which Way Are You Going, sometime between Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, although it can be read totally independently if you like. We get a rare glimpse into Joshua's head about some of his own thoughts and feelings about Joan while he... relieves some pressure.





	Talking in Your Sleep

Talking in Your Sleep

_Don't you know you're sleeping in a spotlight, and all your dreams that you keep inside—you’re telling me the secrets that you just can't hide_

           

        Joshua Graham blinked, suddenly alert. A small, sharp cry had pierced through the veil of his sleep; a thin veil, as it always had been, has always had to be, particularly since his exile from the Legion. He silently rolled over in his lean-to, his hand instinctively reaching out for his pistol, squinting and blinking to adjust his eyes in the darkness. A quick scan of the cove revealed that nothing immediately seemed to be amiss; the fire was small in the late hour, and the Dead Horses and scattered Sorrows were tucked away into their own lean-tos, sleeping quietly in the moonlight.

        The only aberration was Joan. She was sleeping a few feet away from him, close to the dying embers of the fire. He recalled her first visit to Zion, months ago: his preparations for the upcoming engagement with the White Legs had kept him busy in the Angel Cave far later than usual, and it was well past midnight when he finally emerged from the cave, worn and fatigued. Surprise had punctured the tiredness when he saw a small figure lying sandwiched between the fire and his personal lean-to. Joan, the courier. It had been much colder then—it was only logical that she would have slept curled close to the warmth of the fire. He also remembered the following morning: that they had woken around the same time and the shock of pink in her cheeks when she realized she had been sleeping next to him, scrambling to gather her belongings and dashing out of the Eastern Virgin to collect the supplies he’d asked of her.

        Satisfied that the valley was safe from intruders—perhaps he had only dreamed the noise—he propped himself up to roll back over to return to sleep. He was mid-roll when another small cry rent the air and he stilled before looking over his shoulder; Joan was burrowed deep into her sleeping bag, only her sharp nose poking out over the worn fabric, her eyes squeezed shut just above it. He hadn’t imagined the noise after all. He watched her for another moment and she stirred, briefly, before making another small sound. Her thin brows were furrowed together; he wondered if perhaps she were having a nightmare. As he watched her she pulled her face up over the fabric of her sleeping bag and he saw that her lips were parted.

        She exhaled slowly and steadily before sharply intaking air in a thin gasp; the cadence of the noise left little mystery about the contents of her dream. He felt himself stiffen and finally rolled all the way over, drawing his furs around him tightly. She was breathing heavily behind him now that her mouth was free. He closed his eyes with resolve, electing to ignore her, and focused on trying to fall back asleep, tempting his brain with thoughts of the work to be done the next day.

        After a few minutes he was almost successful: his eyelids were no longer squeezed shut, his face growing slack, and the tension melting from his shoulders. He had finally entered that pleasant place between dreaming and waking, the peaceful abyss of sleep just in front of him, so close he could nearly reach out and touch it.

        Joan moaned. The abyss shattered and Joshua was as awake as he had been a few minutes before, his traitorous cock still rigid beneath his jeans. He suppressed an exasperated groan and closed his eyes again, determined to ignore her as he burrowed further into his furs, feeling overly warm in the cold desert night. He tried to clear his mind, to think of anything or nothing that would allow his mind to return to the abyss. After only a minute he was successful, relief welling within him as the darkness pooled around him once again.

        Behind him was the faint rustling of her sleeping bag. Reality tugged at Joshua, sucking him away from the darkness and he reached out for it. He had almost seized it when another high pitched cry cut through the veil.

        His eyes snapped open. He twisted, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at her. Her sleeping bag was pushed down to her waist now and she was stretched out, her small chest rising up and down as she continued to inhale and exhale deeply, small noises interspersed with her breathing. One arm was extended over her head, the bruises that mottled it washed pale in the moonlight. She moaned again, sounding strained.

        Around the moan, he distinctly heard her whisper his name in the darkness.

        He whipped around, facing the wall of the canyon again. His cock strained painfully against the fly of his jeans with enough pressure that he winced, clenching the muscles in his thighs to try to steady himself. It did nothing to relieve him; if anything it called to attention the fact that a dull ache had began to thrum deep within his balls. He sighed.

        It was clear that sleep was, for now, off the table. He unzipped his jeans and nearly wheezed at the release of pressure before pushing down the thin white undergarments he wore under his clothing. He was finally free. He did not normally permit himself to give in to these kinds of indulgences—distractions, really—but he was still a man, and sometimes it was a matter of practicality that couldn’t be avoided. She murmured behind him again and he twitched before taking himself in hand. He pressed his lips together against the groan that nearly escaped him when his rough fingertips landed near his head; he was quite sensitive after the spikes and lulls of her noises. He lowered his hand, gently stroking closer to his base, where the skin was lightly scarred and less delicate. His touch seemed to act as an aperitif, awakening the deeper hunger within him, one left long unsatisfied.

        It had been more than five years since he had last taken a lover. The black seed within him, the part of himself that he had worked so hard to exterminate over the years and that had stubbornly remained despite his grandest efforts, sprouted and grew. It wanted only to devour. That deep part of him, forever in the darkness, contemplated rolling out of his lean-to, crawling over to her and taking her right there next to the fire; the Dead Horses, God, and anyone else who might be watching be damned.

        He resisted his impulses, determined that he would sin only as much as was necessary. He lay silently stroking himself for the next few minutes. The darkness inside shrank before leveling off, momentarily appeased.

        After another couple minutes he noticed that Joan had been quiet for a while. He chanced craning his neck and glancing at her once again: she was still sprawled out, her lips still slightly parted, though she appeared to be sleeping deeply now. He turned back; he was in too deep to stop now. The dull ache had persisted, and it demanded that he see himself through to completion.

        He allowed his mind to drift and he idly wondered what she had been dreaming about as he continued to work himself. Him, obviously, although her crush had been evident since that first morning she had woken, flushed and girlishly embarrassed by his close proximity. She had hardly been subtle about it since then, though she likely thought she was being very sly. It had been impossible to not notice her however; the way she hung on his every word, how close she would perch next to him during mealtimes, and not least of all the way he could feel her eyes burning into him, only to tear away at the last second when he looked back at her.

        Beyond her infatuation, however, he wasn’t sure what to make of her. He had no idea what preferences she might have in a lover, if indeed she had any at all; he did not ordinarily think of her in this manner. The dark seed within him had thought about it though, hungrily surveying the opportunity that he continued to do his best to discourage.

        No, he thought, abruptly and wickedly inspired by the darkness; he did know her type. With her bold personality and abrasive wit, she was the sort of woman who yearned, however secretly, to be held down and taken forcefully. To be tamed and made docile. She might play at fighting it, perhaps might even fight back with some actual verve, but she would privately thrill in having power seized from her, to be made his. She displayed some of the same predatory impulses that he often found within himself, but he wasn’t blind to how easily and readily she submitted to him in even the most innocuous situations; the food he gave her to eat, the paths he chose as they walked through the valley, the bible she read when she wasn’t by his side. She would be all too eager to please him, even if her ego begged and pleaded with her not to.

        He stretched his legs out and pumped more firmly as her revisited the idea he had earlier, of crawling over to her and letting the fire within him consume them both. He let fantasy overtake him as he imagined how that scenario might play out.

        In his mind’s eye he crawled over to her, silent, carnivorous. The moon was high in the sky, illuminating her as she slept, her pale pink lips still parted, breathing steadily. She might softly cry out his name once again. As fast as a snake he would rip back the front of her sleeping bag, slamming his bandaged hand over her mouth as her dark eyes flew open, alarmed at first, and then, as she realized whose hand was clamped firmly against her lips, a spark of delighted fear. He wouldn’t have to speak a word; he would stare into her eyes before glancing up at the camp around them and then back at her. The message would be clear—make a single sound and everyone wakes up.

        He interrupted his fantasy to twist his neck and look back at her again. She was laying fully on her back with her head tossed back, her short black hair fanned out around her face like a dark halo. Her light grey shirt had been tugged down while he had been preoccupied and was dangerously close to revealing the small pointed nipple that swelled beneath the thin material. She turned her head and his eyes lingered on her throat; caught in the moonlight, pale and exposed. A rivulet of fluid leaked from his head, glossing his fingertips before seeping into his bandages.

        He turned back around to face the wall again and returned to his fantasy: she would be aware of the stakes, so he would release his hand from her mouth, the bandages that covered his palm slightly damp. He would slide that hand up across her cheekbone and past her head, before seizing the arm that lay extended, swiftly pulling the other up to join it and pinning her small wrists together against the sand above her head. He would restrain her easily with one hand and use the other to part the bandages at his lips before dipping his head to that deliciously white throat, peppering a few kisses before firmly sucking at the thin pulsing flesh; a technique that had reduced many slave girls into compliant jelly in his arms in the past. She would gasp with pleasure before he clamped his hand back over her mouth, quietly shushing her. She would writhe beneath him and he would grow even more excited, pressing his erection into her hip. She would hitch when she realized what it was. Perhaps she would struggle, try to close her legs, but it would be fruitless; he would slide his knee between her thighs, forcing them apart and she might make a muffled cry of objection. He would look into her eyes again and they would both know how much she had longed for this, had dreamed about it, how her needy cries had betrayed her in the darkness.

        He would be forced to release her mouth, but not before first delivering a look so thunderous that she would know better than to make a single sound, submitting to him already. He would sweep his hand down her thin body and pulled down the matching shorts she wore, casting them away with the last of her will to resist him.

        Finally he would seat himself between her thighs, still crushing her wrists into the sand above her head. Perhaps he would leave her with more markings than the ones he’d already been forced to inflict on her. His eyes would never leave hers as he slowly entered her, pushing himself in as far as she could take him, gloriously wet and tight. They would both restrain themselves from groaning in pleasure, the fire within him jumping to her the way that a freshly extinguished candle could be lit from merely igniting the smoke that wisped from it. He would seize the swell of her hip for leverage as he thrust in and out of her, steadily picking up the pace.

        Joshua stroked himself in rhythm with the scene that played out in his mind, his hips occasionally jerking, thrusting himself into his palm. His thoughts were much more intense than usual; he already felt perilously close to the edge. In his fantasy he was pounding into her now, his hands digging into her hips hard enough to turn the flesh red, driving her down into the sand, and she would have fully given in: dropping all pretenses of resistance and wrapping her thin legs around him, burying her face into his neck and clinging to him, becoming a mere passenger on his race to the finish, making those sinful little noises all the while. Joshua chewed his own lip and stroked himself with greater urgency, the dam in his lower belly close to breaking.

        A sharp moan cut the air behind him, puncturing his fantasy and he came hard, flooding into his palm in several thick gushes. His free hand darted to his mouth to stifle the deep groan that very nearly escaped him as it all surged out. Dimly he heard rustling behind him; the pitched moan had been loud enough that he could detect the faint sounds of a few Dead Horses stirring behind him in the darkness. He lay very still. After a minute the movements ceased, some of the men grousing in their sleep as they settled back into their rest. Silence washed over the camp once again.

        The last pulses of orgasm melted away from him and he was left in that terrible post-bliss moment where every mistake he had ever made—and they were nearly uncountable in number—flashed across his mind in rapid succession. The darkness within him receded; banished by the harsh and fiery spotlight that illuminated the path he did his best to walk during the day. He was suddenly keenly aware of the rapidly cooling and congealing puddle in his palm and he grimaced, wiping his hand as clean as he could on the furthest edge of the Yao Guai fur he laid upon, promising himself he would wake earlier than usual to wash it, as well as change the dressings on this hands and wrists. He tucked himself—almost fully soft once more—neatly back into his undergarments and quietly zipped his jeans back into place. He could almost fool himself into thinking he hadn’t just let that happen. Almost.

        Behind him he heard the quiet rustle of Joan’s sleeping bag once again. He rolled over as quietly as he could manage with his now stiff back and thighs that quivered like jelly; he saw her, cocooned within her bag once again, deeply and soundlessly asleep now. Across the sand her arm lay extended; it was now reaching toward him. He stared at it—she was close enough that he could have easily reached out and brushed his fingertips against hers, grazing the thin layer of bandages on her forefinger. The spotlight within him directed its beam to her, and he prayed that they would not add to his long list of mistakes together.

**Author's Note:**

> Title song is Talking in Your Sleep - The Romantics


End file.
